Sharing some of what I talk about, and learn, in my private therapy sessions. I am blessed with a wonderfully supportive psychiatrist who provides me with both medication advice and therapy. I am hoping my experiences in my sessions can help someone else.

Sunday, December 28, 2008

False Prophet

I had a dream last night:

I was with a group of people (old colleagues, friends etc.) and a man came into our group and told us he had control over all of our existences. He chose when we would die and how we would live.

To prove this to us he took us all into a swimming pool, and from the deck, with nothing attached to him and the water, he proceeded to shock and almost drown each of us.

We fell into line. We believed he had godlike powers. We believed he held our life in his hands.

He met with us the next night and told us we were all going to die the next night. He told each of us how we were going to die. As we knew he was all powerful we waited as our fate was sealed by his words.

My fate was to die by electric shock in the water the following evening. I was terrified and felt like my fate was completely out of my control. I became apathetic, gave up, waited to die.

While waiting I saw him begin to kill other people. He seemed to be torturing them and heading them towards a slow, agonizing death. I became very afraid, so afraid that I felt frozen by my fear: helpless, powerless and standing still waiting for a cruel death.

Something about the terrifying way he began killing people eventually awoke a power in me I did not know I had. I began to think the prophet was false, that it was our inaction that was allowing him to have all this power over us.

I began talking with the others about my beliefs. At first everyone thought it was impossible to change the future. Everyone felt the prophet was in complete control and there was nothing they could do to change their fate.

I explained to them he only had power over us as long as we continued to believe and act as though he did: if we challenged his hold on us we could make him go away.

Slowly people stood up and began challenging him. They told him his power was false, that his power was dependant on our giving up, on our believing we had no power over him, no power to change the fate he had determined for us.

He became furious and made us all go into a small lecture hall, intent on destroying us all. In the hall he began to tear our theory apart, dismissed it, showed us how faulty it was.

We began challenging both his words and the physical nature of his power. He kept trying to hurt us, but we never gave up. After a while even the people who continued to disbelieve our theory and their power began to fight back against the prophet.

He killed two people, but as we fought they began to come to life again. He became weaker and weaker with our offensive tactics. The more we disbelieved, vocalized our disbelief and showed him our power the less powerful he became. By sunup we had become so powerful in our offense that he died right in front of us.

I think maybe the false prophet is my depression/anxiety. I was thinking a lot about suicide last night. Planning my own exit. Thinking to myself about how to die painlessly, or at the very least, quickly. Finally getting complete relief (that is what the "false prophet", depression, was telling me).

The idea of knowing when I die and how seems comforting to me, in the way it might comfort a follower of a prophet who could both foretell and cause my death.

As I plan suicide there is always some small part of me that wants to hang on, that believes I can change, that sees some amount of hope in a bleak situation. This is my offensive tactic, believe in hope, believe my future can change, challenge the seemingly obvious fact that I am destined to allow my depression to kill me. Challenge the fact that I have no power. Stay and fight against what seems a foretold ending.

When we challenged his words and his physical power over us, it is my subconscious challenging the seemingly physical nature and power of my depression. I was especially having trouble yesterday with Valium withdrawal. It was very physical...shaking, twitching uncontrollably, insomnia, extreme tensing of muscles in my neck and shoulder area, my awful mouth movements: tongue curling, pushing against my bottom row of teeth, feeling like I have sores in my mouth and on my tongue from it moving around in my mouth so much; clenching teeth, pursing lips uncontrollably, all returning with a vengeance. I felt/feel so powerless against all this, yet something inside me keeps helping me to quit the medication. I do have some control. I am not powerless.

God, please make this false prophet disappear in the coming year. I really, really need the relief.

3 comments:

Wow Aqua that is a very vivid dream. I'm not sure of meaning in dreams but it seems like this one has had an impact on you, a deep impact.

And I agree, you are strong, you just need to hold onto that self belief, which is hard in depression, but you are beginning to show real strength recently. You are fighting harder recently than I have ever read in your blog. 2009 will bring us relief, because you are grabbing it with every choice that you make. Keep choosing to live Aqua,

Hi Lola,I often have vivid, meaningful dreams. Sometimes I have dreams that tell me the future, that come true.

"...[I believed]it was our inaction that was allowing him to have all this power over us."

"...Everyone felt the prophet was in complete control and there was nothing they could do to change their fate."

"...he only had power over us as long as we continued to believe and act as though he did: if we challenged his hold on us we could make him go away".

These parts of the dream make me feel my subconscious is telling me to fight the prophet (depression) To not give up, to become more active in fight against my depression, to not stand apathetically aside and let it "happen" to me.

In reality, my boost seems to be coming from my going off Valium. I have had a bit more energy due to withdrawal symptoms which is both a good (and bad) thing...depends on the kind of energy at the time.

Dr. X thought the dream was a powerful representation and reminder to me of my leadership skills...I thought it was interesting that he saw that and I completely missed that. depression really makes me see myself in a very negative way. I feel like I have lost those skills. He says I haven't.

About Me

I am currently a lost soul on its quest for freedom. I have a mental illness; Chronic Major Depressive Disorder. My version of MDD sits somewhere in the Bipolar Spectrum, meaning my mood cycles between severe depression and then up high, very high, but not high enough to be considered hypomania. I am hoping to help myself and others who read this blog both understand this illness better and to learn something about ourselves in the process.